Dickens' First Christmas
by athousandsmiles
Summary: She's so interminably, infuriatingly nice, when he's always been attracted to the naughtier types. But somehow she's gotten under his skin, into his bloodstream like a drug resistant virus. House/Cameron


**Disclaimer:** I don't own House or Cameron.

**A/N: **Many thanks to my friend, jesmel, for a speedy beta. This is a last minute back up story for everytimeyougo for the Secret Santa fic exchange at livejournal. Her requests were:

Three things I'd like in my story:  
1. Snow  
2. A cat  
3. A first kiss

Three things I don't want:  
1. Seasons 4-5-6  
2. Cuddy  
3. A baby or pregnancy

Fat wet flakes of snow hit the back of her neck and she's suddenly back in high school as nature flings spitballs while the substitute teacher pretends not to notice. Water trickles between her shoulder blades as more snow finds its target on the one portion of exposed skin where her missing scarf should be.

Releasing her hair from her pony tail, she tucks it into her coat like a makeshift scarf, and then digs into her pockets for her car keys. Striding across the parking lot, she's nearly to her car when one leg plunges into a well disguised pothole, splashing dirty slush halfway up her calf and filling her Mary Jane with ice water. With one hand on the trunk of her car for balance, she lifts her foot and pulls off her shoe, upending it to dump the excess water, and squeezing her foot as if she can wring it out. And then she hears it; the soft mewling sound of something small and helpless. Pausing, she tilts her head and listens intently, wondering if she imagined it. But there it is again, coming from the back end of her car.

Bending forward, she peers beneath the vehicle, but sees nothing from that angle. With a sigh, she gets down on her hands and knees and pokes her head under the back bumper, slush soaking through the knees of her pants and her gloves. Her hair falls into her face and already she's regretting the loss of her pony tail.

"Merry Christmas to me," comes the distinctive voice of her boss from behind her, and it startles her so that she bumps her head on the undercarriage of her car. Glancing over her shoulder, she finds him staring at her ass. "This is a nice view and all, but what the hell are you doing?"

"I think there's a cat under my car," she says, rubbing the top of her head with her gloved hand and mussing her hair further. "I keep hearing something."

"So you thought you'd crawl in there with it?" he asks in disbelief. "There's an easier way." And with that he begins whacking her bumper with his cane.

"House! You're not helping. You'll just scare it." Flattening herself to the ground, she shimmies further under the car, ignoring the snow. And House.

"Exactly. I'll scare it out," he says, smacking his cane against her bumper again in a rhythmic beat.

She turns on her side and glares at him, swiping at the wet stringy hair that hangs in her face. As she turns back to continue her search, she catches sight of a gray ball of fluff tucked inside the wheel well of her back tire, a pair of yellow eyes blinking at her warily.

"Found it," she declares triumphantly, reaching in to ease the kitten from its hiding place. The little fluff ball mewls in distress and shrinks away from her.

"It's okay," Cameron coos. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Once she extracts the kitten, she rolls onto her back, cuddling it to her chest and scoots out from beneath the car. House looks down on her with amusement; a slide show of fantasies scrolling through his head. She is a wet mess, with streaks of dirt smeared across her face like fingerpaint and clothes clinging to her like second skin and she doesn't even seem to mind. On the other hand, the cat objects strenuously to the sudden onslaught of snow pelting its fur, crying like a newborn baby yanked from the womb.

"I always took you for the kitten rescuing type," he mocks. "Just never thought I'd get to see it personally. Lucky me."

Ignoring him, Cameron holds the kitten in one hand and pats herself down with the other, in search of her keys. She checks her pockets again and then remembers she'd had them in her hand when she first crawled under the car.

"Here, hold the cat," she says, thrusting it at House before he can protest. "I've lost my keys." Back on her hands and knees, she disappears beneath the bumper again groping around to no avail, while House ignores the mangy kitten in favor of staring at Cameron's ass.

"Dammit. House, do you have a flashlight?"

"Yes," he deadpans. "Right in my pocket next to my duct tape and paper clips. Just call me MacGyver."

"Who?"

"Never mind," he mutters. "'80's pop culture is totally lost on you. Are you about done with the show down there? Entertaining as it is, I'm in no mood to babysit your furball."

"I can't find my keys," she repeats, squirming further under the car. He stands watching, changing the context in his mind to a bed with her writhing on it wet and half naked, unaware of the sudden appearance of a stupid dreamy grin on his face.

Giving up, she emerges from under the car, huffing out a frustrated sigh and swiping the back of her gloved hand across her face. "I can't find them."

Snapping out of his fantasy, he thrusts the kitten back at her and says, "I suppose that means you need a ride home."

"That would be nice. Thank you," she says, smiling wide and happy and tucking the kitten inside her coat.

"I didn't say I was offering," he replies. "I was just making an observation." At her look, he continues, "Oh fine. Come on then," and leads her to his car.

They drive to her place in silence, except for the occasional plaintive cries of the little lump under her coat that she cradles in her arms. Right next to her breasts, he notes with a bit of envy._ Damn cat._

The weather, and her insistence that he stop at a pet shop so she can buy supplies for the furball means it takes them an hour to get to her place. By then his stomach is rumbling like a long dormant volcano ready to awaken. He parks the car and turns off the engine. At her look he tells her, "The least you can do is feed me after I've chauffeured you all over Princeton."

"Fine," she concedes, leading him into the building. At her door, she realizes again that she doesn't have her keys. She stands there mulling over what to do and lamenting the fact that she doesn't keep a spare hidden somewhere, when House shoves his credit card in the door and works the lock open.

"Have I taught you nothing?" he says. "How do you get into patient's homes if you can't break into your own?"

"I borrow their key," she answers, and he scoffs and says, "Amateur."

Swinging open the door, his jaw drops at the sight that greets him and he groans in dismay. "Good lord, Cameron. What the hell happened in here?"

"What do you mean?"

"This," he says, sweeping his arm toward the tree, the garland, the wreathes, the twinkle lights, the... everything, and continues, "It looks like Charles Dickens, Norman Rockwell and Martha Stewart had an orgy in here."

She smiles proudly, and shuts the door, finally releasing the kitten who immediately curls up in the nearest corner, eyeing House and Cameron warily.

"I like Christmas decorations," she says, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it on a hook inside the closet. "Got a problem with that?"

He drops his coat on the nearest chair, and answers, "Nope, but if we lived together this would be unacceptable." The silence that follows his (revealing) statement is like thunder echoing through the room. He averts his eyes, fingers clutching his cane in a death grip and then adds, "Hypothetically speaking."

Clamping his lips together before anything else escapes, he ponders the living room window and how far the drop to the ground would be, seeing as how she stands between him and the door.

Her eyes are wide, her mouth half opened, but nothing comes out. Wisely, she chooses not to respond, but her brain is whirring like the blades of a high speed fan. Grabbing the bags from the pet store, she sets up the litter box in the corner and sets the kitten in it so that he'll know where to go. Her hair and clothing are still damp and clinging to her skin, but she continues with her tasks, pouring cat food into a dish and water into another and placing them in the kitchen. He thinks it's just like her to think of herself last.

"What are you going to name that thing?" he finally asks, content that she's not going to ask him a million personal questions pertaining to his last statement.

"Dickens," she declares, as if she just thought of it. "What do you think?"

"Couldn't care less," he retorts, "but all the other cats are going to beat up little Dickie on the playground and it'll be all your fault."

She laughs at that, and he can't help but smile because if home had a soundtrack, it would be the sound of her laughter. And then he frowns and wonders if all her Christmas cheer is rubbing off on him and if so, how exactly does he get it off.

"What's for dinner?" he asks, as a distraction from his sappy thoughts, and then cringes at how domestic that sounds. He's been in her place a grand total of ten minutes and he's already imagining a relationship with her, a life with her. A life. He's imagining a life. What would that be like, he wonders? She's so interminably, infuriatingly nice, when he's always been attracted to the naughtier types. But somehow she's gotten under his skin, into his bloodstream like a drug resistant virus.

"I've got lasagna in the freezer I can heat up, if that's okay with you."

"Sounds good," he mumbles, looking desperately around the room for a distraction. He inspects her bookshelf, smirking as he notes the books are separated into categories: mysteries, classics, a surprisingly few romance novels, and some historical fiction, along with medical books and journals. There are a few knickknacks interspersed with the books: an antique globe, an old perfume bottle in the shape of a butterfly, and three delicate, pale blue angels that look like they're made of sea grass.

Under the tree he finds several gifts of varying sizes. He moves over to them and pokes them with his cane, and then leans down to inspect them. Each one has an elaborate ribbon and a sticker where Cameron has written its recipient's name in her loopy script. The smallest gift is wrapped in blue with a silver ribbon and a tag that simply reads, "House."

She got him a present. Of course she did. He feels like a heel because he doesn't have anything for her. But then, she should know him well enough to expect nothing. Plucking the gift from beneath the tree, he carries it into the kitchen, following the smell of garlic bread wafting from the oven.

"What's this?" he asks, startling her as she shreds lettuce into a bowl with her bare hands. He notices that she has brushed her hair and pulled it up into a pony tail, and changed into jeans, and a sweater the color of moss that brings out the green in her eyes.

She pauses, hands hovering over the bowl with a half head of lettuce between them. "It's a gift," she says with a shrug. "Go ahead and open it."

Frozen in place, he doesn't know if he can. This day has been nothing like he imagined it would. Everything feels so wrong and so right at the same time, like he's inside a snow globe that has been turned upside down and shaken and then righted again. It's all turbulent inside, but that's exactly the way it should be.

"It's nothing major," she says with a soft, vulnerable smile. "Just something I saw that made me think of you."

Nodding, he finally peels the ribbon and paper off, letting it fall to the counter. Inside the cardboard is another small box of clear plastic with a miniature Gravedigger inside. When he tilts it to get a better look, Gravedigger moves, running over the little cars in its path and crushing them beneath its wheels. He tilts it the other way and Gravedigger moves back over them and then the little red and yellow cars regain their shape, ready for another round.

"Thank you," he manages around the lump in his throat. She got him a child's toy, which is not to say he doesn't like it because he does. And yet he's all choked up because she... she touches him. She touches him with her little acts of kindness, and her faith in the world at large, and her stubborn need to do the right thing, and especially in her belief that under the Scrooge-like exterior of her misanthropic boss, lies the heart of Tiny Tim.

"You like it?" she asks, frowning because he looks so shook up and she wonders if she said or did the wrong thing. "It's okay if you..."

He doesn't let her finish; his fingers are learning the curves of her apple cheeks and inching up to release her hair from its confines so he can revel in the ribbon silk of it as he draws her to him. Her face tilts up expectantly, but her eyes are searchlights seeking out the truth of his actions. He smiles a little smile and then touches his lips to hers. And as he kisses her for the first time, he could swear he hears a small voice say...

_"And God bless us everyone."_


End file.
